


pearl diver (dive, dive deeper)

by norvegiae



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Ambiguity, Ambiguous/Open Ending, M/M, Merpeople, Merperson James, james fishjames, ooky spooky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:55:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26372326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/norvegiae/pseuds/norvegiae
Summary: A man – Francis instinctively wants to call him this, but although he can see his face and his arms and chest and can deem them all to be quite regular, he can also make out a hint of a shadow of something – no legs buta tail, he thinks – moving lazily beneath the surface of the water. This is no man, this is not like any man Francis has ever known.
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames
Comments: 21
Kudos: 85





	pearl diver (dive, dive deeper)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the_lenka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_lenka/gifts).



> I started writing this in April, thinking I could get it done for mermay, but well...2020 is just like that, isn't it.
> 
> Anyway, this is better - because now this is a birthday gift for my dear dear friend Lenka, who helped me come up with this mermaid-y goodness in the first place. 
> 
> I suppose it's an AU where Francis et al are on Terror but they're not doing cold things - I guess it works if you don't think about it too much. 
> 
> Enjoy, and happy birthday Lenka!!!!!!

_HMS Terror_ has been docked in Rio de Janeiro for less than twenty-four hours, and already Francis is eager to leave. He is waiting for new orders, and the ship must resupply before it can go anywhere else; the hold must be filled with all manner of leafy vegetables and salted meats and fresh water, sparkling like crystal. Given all the bureaucracy and paperwork and delays, however, Francis would not be surprised if the crew starve to death waiting for it all.

It is November and the heat is incredible, the air still and heavy and pervasive.

Francis decided long ago that he is much more suited to the cold, to places where nothing can grow and the ice can numb him to the core. Here, the heat clings to him like a too-tight coat and there is no reprieve – not as he walks the deck, and certainly not in his stuffy cabin and his narrow captain’s berth, where he has tossed and turned and tried to achieve rest for days now, without fruition.

On the second night in port, with sleeplessness a forgone conclusion, Francis feels that he must get off the ship. It is all too much: the heat, the boredom, the pain he feels if he allows himself to sit still and let his thoughts stray back to London. He elects to take a walk along the harbour, to look for some dark cove down the coast where he might sit and try to clear his head of its congested thoughts, to ease the painful weight in his heart.

He leaves Terror in her berth and walks through the still night air. The harbour is packet with sailors and officers and merchants and doxies, but eventually the crowds thin out, the stone beneath his feet is replaced by a dirt track, and still he walks.

The source of Francis’ pain – it is Sophia, of course. Her second refusal, just before he had left England – he does not know how the agony of it, the humiliation, will ever recede. She haunts his memories; the image of her eyes, at once demure and downcast and yet sharp and knowing, cutting him down to size. Retribution for his undignified, grasping desires.

And yet he had been so sure of her affections, so sure that it was enough to overcome whatever obstacles she perceived. He had forgotten, of course, the biggest obstacle was himself, his birth, his voice: things he did not choose and would never have chosen if he had known the doors it would close to him, the happiness it would deny.

Francis Crozier has always wanted that which is too good for him, and he will never learn.

The crunch of sand beneath his boots alerts him to the fact that he has reached a small bay. The susurration of the sea against the shore seems so much louder than the faint noises of civilisation behind him. Francis turns his back on the sounds of merrymaking and the lights up on the hill, and he gazes out at a dark sea under a dark sky, shifting and restless.

He realises he has forgotten his pipe and sighs, wishing that he had it with him, that he might have something to occupy his hands and his attention. He pats at his pockets as if it might suddenly appear, sighs again and tips his head back to look up at the stars.

It always takes him a moment to place the constellations of the Southern Hemisphere, different as they are from the stars he would look up at as a child, standing in the Banbridge garden of his youth. It makes him feel somewhat out of place, as if all his experience counts for naught.

“You’re a long way from your ship, Captain.”

The sudden voice makes Francis jump. He wheels around, peering up and down the beach through the darkness, expecting to see a figure lumbering towards him. But there is no one, no one at all. He is quite alone, and yet he is sure that he did not imagine what he heard.

Perhaps he has gone mad; perhaps the heat and the heartbreak have driven him to it.

He takes a deep breath to steady himself, takes off his cap and runs a hand through his hair. He suddenly catches movement out of the corner of his eye and looks back out at the water, at a small outcropping of rocks and a dilapidated, long-abandoned wooden jetty. There is definitely something, _someone_ , there, though it is too dark to see, and Francis only sees the suggestions of shadows, but – yes, there – he is sure he can make out the silhouette of a person, half submerged in the water, leaning on the rocks, watching him.

“Who’s there?” Francis calls into the darkness, and thinks he hears a laugh.

“I’ve been watching you, Captain. You’re a long way from your ship.”

“Who are you?” Francis asks, taking a step closer to the water’s edge. “What are you doing out there?”

It is the strangest feeling, to know that he is being watched through the darkness. To be so entranced by a pair of eyes that he cannot even see.

“The water is lovely, this time of year,” the figure says. His is a low voice, curiously English, considering their current latitude. “Why not come in for a swim, before you go back to _Terror_?”

A shiver runs down Francis’ spine. “How do you know who I am?”

He hears a laugh again. “I’ve been watching you, like I said. If you don’t fancy a swim, perhaps I could sing you a song. To ease your mind.”

Francis’ mind _does_ need easing, he is sure of that. Maybe a swim would be nice too, to wash off the heat and the sweat and the dust. The water must be blessedly cool, at this time of night. It would be no work at all to strip down to his linens, to wade in and let the sea relax his tense, aching muscles and empty his mind. He could follow that voice, that _lovely_ voice, he could let the currents take him to a place where he would not have to think anymore.

He moves closer to the water’s edge, but when he notices how the waves are lapping at his boots he halts, suddenly unwilling to go any further. A cold feeling of dread seizes him.

 _Do not go into the water,_ says a voice in his head, louder and clearer than anything he has ever heard in his life. He staggers back slightly, back up onto the dry sand.

Without a second glance at the unknown figure in the water, without a word, Francis hurries back up the beach, back to the harbour, back to _Terror_.

As he goes, he tries not to look out at the sea, that constant companion at his side. He tries not to think about that voice and those eyes, as yet unseen and yet clearly burned into his mind. He tries to concentrate only on putting one foot in front of the other – not quite a run but certainly a hurried, nervous pace – and he cannot shake the feeling that he is being watched still.

That night he sleeps heavily, as he has not done in weeks.

Thomas Blanky finds his Captain on deck early the next morning, looking weary and bewildered. The sky is pink like a peach, the air as sweet. It is not so bad to be stuck here, Blanky thinks, comparing it to any number of grim English ports; lashed by rain, the colours washed out and mingling with the mud.

“Did you not sleep well?” He asks, leaning against the gunwale.

“No,” Francis says, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. “It’s the heat,” he adds, by way of explanation. He can never usually lie to his friend – he never usually wants to – but the circumstances are strange enough as to force his hand.

Thomas nods. “Aye, the heat.”

There is silence between them for a moment, and Francis listens to the waves lapping against _Terror’s_ hull, and the creaking of timbers as she rocks gently in her berth.

“And how was your late night promenade?”

Francis fixes Thomas with a look, going for confused and mildly annoyed, though he is not sure if he manages it. “Just grand. Why do you ask?”

Thomas shrugs and looks up into the rigging, as if deep in thought. “No reason,” he says mildly, “only you look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Hardly,” Francis scoffs, though he barely knows the truth of what he _did_ see. “It’s the heat,” he says again, and it seems an even weaker excuse than the first time.

“You’ve heard the stories, though.” Thomas shifts a little closer, taking on a conspiratorial air. “Sailors have been going missing up and down this coast.”

Francis clenches his jaw, thinking of last night, of the wash of sea-foam over the toes of his boots. He had nearly done it. He had wanted to. “Sailors get drunk and fall into the sea. That’s hardly news, Thomas.”

“Oh aye?” Thomas barks a laugh. “And what of that lieutenant on’t' _Exmouth_ who threw himself overboard as they were leaving port?”

Francis had heard about that. It had shocked him at the time and makes him feel nauseous now. He forces the feeling down, swallows heavily, shaking his head a little. “That sounds like a man’s own business, and not ours.”

Thomas sighs, clearly sensing that he is not making his point known, pushing away from the gunwale to straighten up again. “Aye, Captain. I’ll leave you to it, then.”

Francis nods, watching him make his way to one of the hatches to head below. He turns back to look out at the water, scanning the surface for – for anything. Anyone. He is being watched, after all – or so he was told.

If it is the same creature that has been luring sailors to their deaths, he knows he should not go back to that beach. He has heard the stories as a child at home, and then as a man at sea, and he knows how it goes.

A song – hadn’t he been offered a song? Something to lure him to his demise? He considers himself lucky to have gotten back to _Terror_ at all, when he could so easily have been at the bottom of Guanabara Bay by now.

Francis knows he should not go back to that beach, but that voice rings in his head as clear as a bell. He feels its call, he cannot deny it.

He sits through dinner, only half listening to whatever his lieutenants are talking about, drumming his fingers in an arrhythmic pattern, all frantic energy. He jogs his leg beneath the table, ignores the curious looks he gets. It is clear to him, through all this, just precisely what it is that he wants. He wants to go back. He should not go back, but he wants it. And, well – he is so used to not getting what he wants _._ Maybe he is owed this, maybe this creature has taken a shine to him for a reason.

Francis should not go back, but he knows he will.

He walks the same path to the same beach, relieved to find it again deserted. It is lighter, tonight; the moon is out, throwing swathes of silvery light across the water.

It means he can stare intently at the same outcrop of rocks, and the rickety structure of the jetty, though this time there is no one lurking there in the shadows. The force of his disappointment surprises him. He paces the beach, fiddling with his clay pipe – he has not forgotten it, this time – wondering what he is waiting for, wondering for how long he is willing to wait.

He does not know how much time has passed, but he has almost made up his mind to leave when he hears movement in the water, out of time with the regular sound of the waves on the shore.

“Oh, Captain,” comes that voice, and it sends a thrill through Francis to hear it. “I had hoped you would come and see me again.”

“It was – it was too dark, the other night,” Francis manages; a rush of adrenaline confusing his mind, making it hard to get the words out. “I – I wanted to see what you look like.”

A laugh. “Come closer and see me, then.”

Francis doesn’t need to be told twice. He kicks off his boots and rolls up his trouser legs as best he can, and clambers up onto the jetty – the wood creaks beneath his feet but does not immediately collapse, which is encouragement enough for him to pick his way cautiously along it, until he can go no further and the source of that voice is but a few feet away.

It is a man – or some sort of creature resembling a man – bare-chested, here in the water as if it is the most natural place to find him, looking up at Francis with an amused sort of smile.

He is – he is handsome, in a way that Francis finds hard to describe. His wet, dark hair sticks to his face and neck like inky tendrils. His features – his high cheekbones, his aquiline nose, his sharp jaw – are finely sculpted, as if he has been hewn from a block of marble. This may well be the case, for all that the moonlight makes his bare skin glow like alabaster. His eyes, however, are unfathomably dark. No human eyes, these. No – no warmth. Just the cold black of night, a yawning void into which Francis could so easily fall.

These eyes remind Francis of a shark he had once seen, caught by fishermen and hauled onto the dock at Hobart. It had been a mighty thing, even in its pathetic state, lying unmoving under the baking sun, its mouth hanging open and its black eyes unfocused and unseeing. Francis had had the urge to stroke its smooth grey flank, as if this tender touch might bring it back to life and cast it back into the sea.

Francis is staring, he realises; dumbstruck, in a stupid and brutish manner, and all at once the man grins, revealing a dazzling array of white, sharply pointed teeth.

A man – Francis instinctively wants to call him this, but although he can see his face and his arms and chest and can deem them all to be quite regular, he can also make out a hint of a shadow of something – no legs but _a tail_ , he thinks – moving lazily beneath the surface of the water. This is no man, this is not like any man Francis has ever known.

“Who are you?” Francis asks. “Have you a name?”

Silence for a moment, before a name is offered to him.

“James.”

A bark of surprised laughter rushes out of Francis before he can help himself. It is almost outrageous to hear such an ordinary name in these most unusual of circumstances. It is a name he might hear in any English speaking city in the world, and here it is floating through the air of a humid Brazilian night, as hushed and as soft as the wash of water against sand.

He realises he has misstepped, however, because the creature – _James –_ looks vaguely offended. “That’s your name?”

He is met with a scowl. “And what’s wrong with that? It’s a name, isn’t it?”

Francis cannot argue with this. It _is_ a name, though he has the feeling that it has only this moment been chosen. “I meant no offence,” he says, holding his hands out in a placating gesture. “My name is–”

“Francis Crozier,” James says smoothly, and grins again. “I know.”

Francis should question this, should demand an explanation as to how James knows so much about him, but he finds he doesn’t care.

James is beautiful, and he is _frightening_ , and Francis cannot bring himself to look away. All sensible thoughts have quite gone out of his head.

“Sit down,” James offers, folding his arms on the rock and laying his cheek against them. “Stay and talk a while.”

It is an alluring suggestion. It goes against every shred of Francis’ sense of self preservation, but he does not want to leave quite yet. He glances down at the jetty beneath his feet, and the waves just beyond.

“I’m not sure if that’s wise.”

“Nonsense,” James says smoothly. “It’s a lovely night. Sit down, rest your feet.”

Francis studies him, watching for some hint of malice or hunger, some look of malevolence in his black eyes. “And you won’t pull me in?”

James looks amused, raising an elegant brow. “I won’t pull you in,” he promises, though he glances at Francis’ ankles as if it is a tempting prospect.

 _Well,_ Francis thinks, _it would be an interesting way to go._ A good story for his siblings, if not particularly heroic.

James keeps his promise, however, and as Francis settles himself on the jetty, his bare feet dangling in the water, James maintains a distance, watching him with steady eyes and a hint of a smile on his face. The large, dark shape of his tail continues to move steadily through the water like a metronome, a ticking clock.

“What...that is, if it’s not rude to ask–” Francis begins, blushing like a fool, hoping it is not noticeable in the pale moonlight. “What manner of creature are you?”

“They have different words for me, around here,” James says, casting his eyes up at the row of colonial mansions high up on the hill, golden candlelight shining brightly from their windows. “ _Sereia, sirena, trit_ _ã_ _o.”_ He looks back to Francis, wets his lower lip with his tongue. “But I do not have need of their names.”

“But you do have need of us,” Francis says. “Humans, I mean. These Navy men going missing – that’s your work, isn’t it?”

James smirks, narrows his eyes slightly. “The sea provides and the sea takes away, Captain. I’ve always had a taste for sailors.”

There is something in these words that twists Francis’ stomach, but if it is excitement or fear, he does not know. He thinks, perhaps, it is a heady mix of both. There is that voice in his head, again, telling him to _run, for god’s sake, get away while you can,_ but tonight he finds that it is ever so easy to ignore.

“And what about me? Are you going to–” He finds he can’t quite finish the thought, swallows heavily and clears his throat instead.

“No,” James says simply. He has taken hold of a stray blade of seaweed and draws it idly through his fingers, and it reminds Francis of the ribbons with which his sisters would play in their youth, as soft as butter and as dark as night. “Not tonight. I find I rather like you.”

“Why?”

Francis feels it is not a ridiculous question. This town is full of sailors far younger, more handsome, less weather-beaten. His company is hardly sought after at the best of times, his conversational skills are nothing of consequence. Even here, as with so many things in his life, he is not a logical first choice. Nothing special, nothing worth keeping around, no good to anyone for very long. He supposes that is how he finds himself in these far-flung harbours, so very far from Sophia Cracroft’s sunny drawing room in a house near Holland Park.

“I’ve never seen a man wear his heartbreak so prettily,” James says by way of explanation, his voice suddenly tender, his eyes soft. “They have left their mark on you, whoever they are.”

Francis opens his mouth, shuts it again, finds he has nothing to say. For a ridiculous moment he worries that he will burst into tears, and fights down that urge, taking on that irritated tone of voice to which he is so accustomed. “I am glad my pathetic demeanour pleases you,” he snaps.

“Oh no,” James says, shaking his head so vigorously that he sends tiny droplets of water flying from his hair. He suddenly grabs at the jetty, and with a rush of water, easily hauls himself up so that they are face to face.

Francis stares at him wide-eyed, mouth agape, vaguely aware of the hair plastered to James’ face and the water running in rivulets down his arms and his chest, but he hardly dares to look. He stares straight into the incredible darkness of James’ eyes and his heart beats so loudly that James must be able to hear it.

“Not pathetic, Francis, never that. No, it is admirable – what courage, what strength of character. A braver man I have not seen, for many years.”

“I’m sure that’s not true,” Francis says, weakly.

His eyes wander, despite his efforts to keep them fixed on James’ face. They stray down to that inhuman point where stomach and waist become a glassy, cold lamina; soft, wet skin, goose-bumped slightly in the cool night air, impossibly changing to a smooth, shimmery array of scales, reflecting the moonlight and the faint glow of civilisation back on the shore.

Francis has always been a man of science, of logic. He has heard the stories, of these water dwellers so intent on a sailor’s ruin, but not for a moment has he ever allowed himself to believe them. It is simply not possible, these stories to frighten children which against all educated thinking – and yet here is the proof of them. Here is such a story come to life.

He is still staring, can hardly tear his eyes away. It would be utterly indecent to stare at this part of James’ body, were he human. Then again it feels indecent to look now, so brazenly does Francis stare. He comes back to himself suddenly, wrenches his eyes away and catches sight of a scar, the skin pink and tender on the left side of James’ breast, smooth like worn velvet.

Francis lifts a hand to touch it before he can stop himself. He thinks that James might push him away, but he doesn’t – instead he looks down at Francis’ hand, water from his hair dripping onto Francis’ sleeve.

“Where did you get this?” Francis asks, tracing its perimeter with his fingertips, noticing two matching marks on either side of James’ arm.

“A harpoon,” James says, smiling at Francis’ surprised expression as if it is a fond memory. “I was young and rash. A group of fishermen nearly got me – but only nearly. I still managed to overturn their little boat and drown the lot of them.”

That does not make Francis laugh as James perhaps hopes, but it is enough to make James chuckle. He suddenly pushes away from the jetty, falling back into the water with an almighty splash. For a few moments he is gone, and there is no sound save for the sighing of the waves against the sand.

As he dries his face with his sleeve, Francis begins to think that James has gone for good, and he is about to draw his feet out of the water to head back to the safety of the beach when James suddenly resurfaces.

He rakes back his hair from his face, holding his hand out to Francis, revealing something small and shiny in his cupped palm.

“Enlighten me, Francis. What _is_ this?”

Francis takes the tiny metal object from him, peering at it through the nighttime gloom. “Tis a collar stud,” he says at length, turning it over in his hand. A small, unimpressive thing, commonplace and unremarkable in any bedroom in the world, but as Francis hands it back it seems to become more like some precious jewel, cradled carefully in James’ pale hand. “For attaching a collar to a shirt.”

“Aha!” James says victoriously. “I have been pondering it for some time. I thought a cufflink, at first – I see a lot of those – but it is too big. But no – a collar stud. Good to be able to give it a name at last.”

“Where did you find it?” Francis asks, realising immediately that it was probably not a case of _finding –_ rather one of _taking._

James smiles blithely. “I find all sorts of things,” he says, in the tone of one who collects seashells, or presses flowers, or gathers berries from an autumn hedgerow. “I have a marvellous collection.”

Francis can picture it, he can picture the bottom of a blue-green ocean, amongst orchards of seaweed; bedecked with pearls and opalescent shells and all manner of detritus from the human world – belongings, forgotten or lost or pilfered, floating down to the ocean floor, coming to rest among the sand and silt for James to hoard and sit amongst like the monarch of some sunken realm.

Do the hulls of great ships cast shadows across James’ kingdom, as they make their slow journey out into the Atlantic? Do they disturb him, Francis wonders, do they wake him from his slumber? Is this why he lurks on the edge of the harbour seeking recompense, seeking to claim some drunken fool, some homesick and miserable youth, someone pliable, easy to lure to the water’s edge, where he can grab a wrist, or an ankle, and then -

“You should see it,” James says, breaking Francis from his reveries.

It is so easy for Francis to blink, to nod a little and say _yes_ before he can think about what that means.

James says nothing to this, but grins that sharklike grin, and curls a hand (slightly webbed, slightly more clawed than any human hand) around Francis’ calf. The grasps of his fingers is insistent enough to bring Francis back to his senses.

“I think I should go,” he murmurs. “They will be wondering where I am.”

“Let them wonder,” James says. “Stay with me, Francis. Let me soothe your weary heart. Come into the water and I’ll sing you to sleep.”

Francis shakes his head slightly, feeling the numb heat of panic starting to set in. He wants to get away, to feel _Terror’s_ wooden deck beneath his feet, to be enclosed in her walls and know that nothing can get him there. “I – I don’t want a song.”

“But you _do,_ Francis,” James says, his fingers tightening on Francis’ leg. “It’s the most beautiful song in the world. You’ll cry to hear it.”

“ _No_ ,” Francis insists, a little louder, shaking his head. James is still smiling, but the warmth has gone out of his eyes. There is a look of hunger in him now, something approaching a frenzy. “No. I don’t want it.”

“But you want _me_ , Francis, don’t you?” James moves closer, his hands on Francis’ knees now – “and I want you too,” – his fingers clenching in the fabric of Francis’ trousers, pulling – “I want you so much–”

“ _No!_ ” Francis kicks out wildly, planting the sole of his foot against James’ chest and pushing with all his might to dislodge him. As James is sent careening back under the surface of the water, Francis scrambles to his feet, almost slipping and falling as he does, hurrying back along the jetty, towards the beach.

He trips in his desperation to get out of reach of grabbing hands and pointed teeth. He falls against the hard sand with a grunt as the wind is knocked out of him. For a moment he can do nothing, gasping like a gutted fish as he fights to get movement back into his limbs, and air back into his lungs. Finally he struggles onto his back and sits up, grabbing for his boots, scrabbling to get back to his feet.

He barely manages it, feeling as though he is on board a ship being thrown around in an Antarctic storm, the ground unsteady beneath him and his feet unsteady on the ground. He must get away, and he must do it now, but not without one last glance out at the water. James is there, perched on the end of the jetty, his head tilted menacingly to one side, a wicked grin on his face.

God, how he shines in the moonlight.

“Francis,” he says, pleading almost, which might be believable were it not for the look on his face. “I thought we were getting on so well.”

Francis says nothing, and flees the beach as quickly as he is able.

He is not completely aware of how he gets back to _Terror_ , or how long it takes him. All he does know is that he thunders aboard, bursting into the great cabin out of breath, sweating, trembling, and the commotion of his return earns him a raised eyebrow from his steward.

“It’s been a merry evening, has it, sir?” Jopson asks, all mild detachment, though the tone of his voice is suffused with perhaps a vague disappointment; the tone with which one might address a muddy child with a torn trouser leg.

Francis cannot quite find the words and drops into the nearest chair, fighting with the buttons of his waistcoat, eager to be rid of the oppressive layers of his clothing. “Water,” he rasps, the quality of his voice so rough that Jopson stills, studying him closely enough to take in the pallor of his cheeks, the sweat beading on his forehead, the useless fumbling of his fingers.

“Captain, my god–” Jopson starts, stepping away from his pile of neatly folded linens to grab a jug of water. “Are you quite alright?”

A full glass is pressed into Francis’ hand, and a cloth is laid on the table in front of him, that he might wipe his face.

“I–” He falters, cannot find the words, covers it up by lifting the glass to his face, drinking like he has just stumbled out of a desert.

Francis cannot tell Jopson the truth of it, of course. Cannot let Jopson know that he, a captain in Her Majesty’s Navy, came so close to being drowned, _seduced_ , by some creature of legend, so easily led by a pretty face and pretty words – but had any of it been pretty at all, in hindsight?

“I’m fine,” he manages. “A close call with a carriage in town, that’s all. I’m shaken, but – but I’m fine.” Francis clears his throat, and it seems deafening in the silence. “You can go, Jopson.”

Jopson scrutinises him for a long moment, and then dips his chin in a nod. “Yes, sir,” he says, gathering up his things and taking his leave.

With the door shut firmly behind him, Francis lets out a shuddering sigh, and kicks off his boots with perhaps more force than necessary. They thud across the room. He yanks his cravat from around his neck, letting it flutter to the floor.

He finishes his glass of water, pours himself another and drinks that too.

Christ, but he’d kill for some whiskey.

He thinks Jopson has taken it away, or perhaps locked it in the cupboard and _forgotten_ to leave the key in its usual place.

Francis gets up from his chair and makes his way into his berth, shedding his clothes as he goes until he is down to his linens and feels less like he cannot breathe. He slides closed his door and lies in the darkness, staring up at the low ceiling of his cabin, a strange mix of emotions washing over him like an ebbing tide.

He feels furious, and terrified, but above all he feels annoyed with himself for being so stupid, annoyed with himself for so desperately wanting a creature that desires nothing more than to choke the life out of him, to burn his lungs with saltwater and watch the light fade from his eyes.

Francis is an idiot – he knows this clearly. He is an idiot who has had a lucky escape, and now that he is back within the safety of _Terror_ , he knows he must put the whole thing out of his mind. He will be leaving soon with fresh supplies and new orders, something new to occupy him, something new to fill his mind. _Terror_ will stream out across the Atlantic, and Francis will not give these strange few days a second thought.

It will all be behind him soon.

He closes his eyes, takes a few deep breaths to calm the anxious trembling of his heart, and tells himself again – it will all be behind him soon.

As exhaustion settles upon him like a heavy blanket of snow, he intends to sleep, and sleep heavily, but his brain has other ideas. All night long he tosses and turns on his narrow bed, thinking solely about James. He thinks about how the touch of his lips might feel, about how it might be to have his hair clenched in Francis’ fist, about how his hands might feel on Francis’ skin – but at the same time, how those hands might easily drag him down to the murky depths, and never allow him to see sunlight again.

What a strange thing it is, for Francis’ heart to be pulled so strongly in two very different directions. If his heart could decide what it wants, he would follow gladly, but as it is he feels utterly unmoored, drifting haphazardly towards dangerous waters.

He sleeps but little, and wonders if he will ever find rest again.

As the sun rises, the sky is a cloudy white; thin, wispy things that speak of the night’s mist. They will doubtless melt away as the sun soars higher into the sky, but for now the early morning light over Rio de Janeiro is dull and still, as if a lace curtain has been drawn across the window of the sky.

Francis leaves the ship in a daze, as tired as he has ever been, but so full of a restless, anxious energy that he feels he must get onto solid ground and walk it off. He stumbles along the jetty and soon finds himself in a maze of winding, narrow streets. It is too early for there to be crowds milling around but there is the odd passerby: ladies arm in arm under their lace parasols, a gentleman with a fashionable walking stick. Another, sat on the low stone wall around a fountain, reading a Portuguese newspaper.

Francis nearly passes him by, but catches sight of his face and stops dead in his tracks, his heart jerking about in his chest as if it is liable to leap out of his throat.

“You!” he says, too loudly, before he can stop himself. “What are you doing here?”

The man looks up at him – and it is James, it cannot be anyone else, though he looks more _human_ now in a way Francis can’t describe, aside from the obvious – he has legs, two long legs which he has dressed in finely tailored trousers. He sits with one crossed over the other, looking as comfortable as if this is the only form he has ever taken.

“Sir?” It’s the same voice, too, a voice that has haunted Francis since the moment he first heard it. The man puts down his newspaper, looking up at him with a confused expression.

“How did you come to be here?” Francis demands.

The man blinks, tilts his head slightly. He does not smile, but amusement dances bright and lively in his eyes. “I beg your pardon, sir, but I do not believe we have ever met.”

Francis feels rage swell up in him. He is on the verge of shouting, but he notices how people around them are staring at him, gone quiet and distracted from their conversations. He quails, and clenches a fist behind his back.

He holds the man’s eye for a moment longer, then lets out a harsh rush of breath. “Forgive me. I mistook you for someone else.”

He turns to leave at once, but not before catching sight of the grin on the man’s face as he flees.

Francis returns to _Terror_ and holes himself up in his cabin. He admits no visitors, talks to no one. He closes the windows and draws the curtains across them, blocking out sunlight and fresh air and sea breezes. He sits in silence, staring at the lone candle flickering on the table, and comes to the conclusion that he is going mad.

He _must_ be mad, must truly have taken leave of his senses, and it is James who has driven him to it. Unless – perhaps James is but a figment of his imagination too, perhaps James is but another symptom of it, and does not exist at all. Perhaps Francis has been talking to himself these past nights.

He sighs, slumping in his chair to stare up at the curving ceiling of the cabin. Exhaustion is pulling down at his eyelids, but his heart is fluttering like a bird, all anxious wingbeats, his blood dancing through his veins. His forehead is clammy, his hands tremble. He feels like he will nevermore be able to rest, doomed to live a waking life in this unforgiving world. He will never again know a moment of peace and it is James’ fault. It is James’ voice, and his smile, and his hair, and his eyes, and Francis knows at once that he is bewitched, completely and utterly. He feels that leaving Rio de Janeiro without seeing James again might kill him.

It is an absurd thought, of course, for this is a creature that has tried to drown him, that wants nothing more than to drag him to the bottom of the sea and make free with his body in whatever hungry way he wishes. James wants for Francis to fall out of memory on the seafloor, entombed with his pocket watch and his cufflinks and the shiny belongings of all the luckless sailors that have gone before him.

And yet, there is the operative word – James _wants._ To be _wanted_ – even in this grotesque way – seems very fine to Francis’ lonely heart.

The day passes in a meaningless blur of hours, and Francis sits and thinks. He thinks about James, and he thinks about going back to that beach.

He feels a strange desperation to do it, to see him again, to try and demand answers.

Of course, he knows that if he goes back again, there is a strong chance that he will never return. But then – would it really be so bad?

Francis has not much to show for his career, his life given in service to the Navy. He is undervalued and under-promoted, and when he thinks long and hard about it, he really has nothing to lose. No wife and family, no country home, no box at the opera that would go empty without him.

As the sun slips towards the horizon, he finds fewer and fewer ways of talking himself out of it, and eventually he stops trying.

James is surprised to see him, there is no denying it. Francis arrives to find the beach deserted, and steps up onto the jetty to survey the sea around him. Perhaps the noise of the wood creaking was enough of a signal, or perhaps James just has a sense for these things, because he appears shortly afterwards, staring up at Francis as if he can’t quite believe what he is seeing.

They regard each other for a moment before James shifts closer, curling his fingers around one of the jetty’s barnacled legs, looking up at Francis curiously.

“I did not think you would come back.”

Francis shrugs slightly, trying to affect an air of nonchalance which is only betrayed by the flush in his cheeks.

“I – I saw you today, didn’t I. By the fountain.”

James blinks. “Did you?”

Francis frowns. “It _was_ you, James, it cannot have been anyone else.”

James tilts his head and smiles, like one might smile at a child, or a dog.

He shifts his hold on the jetty slightly and the fins of his tail rise out of the water, translucent, a deep green-grey, light shining hazily through them like stained glass. Ragged around the edges, too. Battle scars, Francis thinks, to match the wound on his chest.

Francis wonders how many other men have put up a fight, he wonders which of them were stupid enough to come back for a third time after two lucky escapes – surely no one else has been so foolish.

“This rather prevents me from taking a stroll into town,” James says as his tail slips back under the surface of the water with a small splash. “But perhaps the man you saw is a twin, or a doppelgänger.”

Francis scowls. “It _was_ you. I saw the look in your eyes. It _must_ have been you.”

“If you say so,” James replies, still with that infuriatingly smug smile on his face.

“For God’s sake,” Francis snaps. “I needn’t have come back if I knew you were going to waste my time.”

James laughs up at him. “But you did come back, Francis. Knowing what I want, knowing what I do...you still came back.”

Francis sighs a little, fidgeting with the cuff of his sleeve. “I want– I want you,” he eventually admits. “I can think of nothing else.”

He lowers himself down onto his knees and reaches out to touch the side of James’ face with a gentle hand, his thumb running along the proud line of his cheekbone. James startles a little but he does not pull away, and he leans into the touch as he stares at Francis with an unreadable expression. His skin is soft, still faintly wet, and cold like a fish – though Francis supposes that one such as James must not truly feel the cold. He may in fact thrive in it, in the same way that Francis does.

“What do you think of?” James asks, his voice soft.

“I think of kissing you,” Francis says, watching James’ mouth opens slightly as he says it. “I have dreamt of it.”

“Would you like to kiss me now?” James asks, turning his head to mouth at Francis’ palm. Francis feels his pointed teeth catch lightly on the flesh at the base of his thumb, and he shivers.

“Yes,” he says plainly, all complicated speech suddenly beyond him.

James nips at his palm again and then pulls back from Francis’ touch, grinning. He looks nothing short of victorious, but Francis cannot bring himself to care.

“I think I would like to kiss you, too,” James says, lowering himself back into the water and pushing away from the jetty. “But you must come into the water for it.”

“Why?”

“It is my one condition, Francis. It is not so much to ask.” James starts to drift slightly, with large, lazy motions of his tail, so that Francis feels compelled to go back along the jetty and follow him down the shore.

“But–”

“I can hardly come onto the land, can I? Come.” James crooks a finger at him.

For a moment, Francis is frozen. He glances towards the town, at the houses beyond the trees, the lights up on the hill, at the ships, far off in the distance.

He turns back to James, who is looking at him like he is the only person in the world.

Francis sighs, and makes up his mind.

He kicks off his shoes, and makes to roll up his trousers, and then decides it won’t do much good. James brightens upon seeing this, and watches him with undisguised interest, his mouth slightly open, the tip of his tongue worrying the point of one of his sharp teeth.

Francis wades into the sea, shin deep, and it’s cold; cold enough to push the breath from his lungs, cold enough to almost bring him back to his senses, but only almost. It is James’ smile that spurs him on, the inky dark hair clinging to his face and his neck, the way Francis’ heart hammers in his chest to look at him.

To know that James wants him – in some way – when he is so used to wanting and not being wanted in return, feeling greedy and offensive and brutish with the force of his fumbling desire, is heady and foreign and overwhelming. He will do anything to chase that feeling. He will do _this_.

The water is waist deep now, and Francis cannot feel his toes with the cold, but with each step he moves closer to James, his beautiful face, and those wondrous eyes, the perfect darkness of a starless night.

“Come on, my darling, nearly there,” James says, holding out his hand.

Francis reaches out to him.

He lets James’ long fingers curl tightly around his wrist.

**Author's Note:**

> please enjoy some [wonderful fishjames art](https://twitter.com/lenkagabriela/status/1307786032046276608?s=20)


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